Affordability has eaten California's governor's race alive — and now the field just got messier. Welcome to California Governor's Race. Today we're sorting through a crowded field where everybody suddenly wants to sound like a housing reformer, and nobody agrees on what that actually means. San Jose's mayor jumps in, a Riverside sheriff is pitching a hard right turn, Steyer's doing podcast rounds — this isn't a primary, it's a casting call. Voters are clearly putting pressure on affordability, so now the test is simple: whose plan still holds up once you get past the talking points? KQED writes:
California’s next governor will inherit an affordability crisis that defies easy fixes: housing costs that have outpaced incomes for years, electricity rates among the highest in the nation, and gas prices nearly $2 above the national average — all in a state whose economy remains the envy of the country.
KQED put together a solid rundown of where the major candidates land on affordability heading into the June 2 primary — housing costs, electricity bills, gas prices nearly two dollars above the national average. Everybody's talking about it, but the specifics are all over the map. Every candidate in a California primary says affordability. Fine. Show me the housing unit targets, the utility rate proposals, the actual math — because whoever wins is inheriting a structural problem, and slogans don't fix that. Becerra was out in Concord talking to 300 people in a high school gym last month — that's real retail campaigning for a statewide race. He hit the usual notes: housing, health care, groceries, gas. The question is whether voters think he has the levers to pull from the governor's office. Becerra ran HHS — that's a federal perch, not Sacramento. His problem is the credibility gap: can he convince people he knows how to move California's regulatory machinery? Voters in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire aren't grading on a curve. Here's Anjana Nagarajan-Butaney at India Currents:
Matt Mahan, the Democratic mayor of San Jose, is running for California governor on government accountability, public safety, housing affordability, and homelessness reform. He joins a crowded 2026 race that includes Democrats Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, and Antonio Villaraigosa, as well as Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is in. He officially entered the California governor's race on a data-and-outcomes platform, with Teach For America background and civic tech work. India Currents had the entry first, so credit where it's due. San Jose is the tenth-largest city in the country, so sure, that's a real credential. But 'data-driven and outcome-focused' is what every technocrat says right before you check whether the outcomes actually moved. The real question is whether he can build a donor base outside the Bay Area. Civic tech networks have money, but Sacramento insiders and LA labor are a completely different map. And the field is already crowded. If anybody consolidates the reform-moderate lane first, they get a shot — but right now nobody's doing it. Mahan just fragments it further, which could open a lane for a more progressive candidate. Here's Vicki Gonzalez, Andrew Garcia at KPBS:
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is consistently polling as one of the top three candidates in the race for governor. The Republican candidate sees a lot of problems with California and wants to take the state in a different direction.
KPBS and CapRadio are doing the work here — interviewing the full field ahead of the primary. And Chad Bianco, Riverside County sheriff, is one of the names actually showing up consistently in the top tier of polls. Bianco has the numbers, and the law-and-order lane is genuinely open in this race. Don't let anyone tell you a GOP candidate can't crack the top two in a California jungle primary when the field is this fragmented. The pitch is classic: a career in law enforcement as a credential for executive office, with affordability and immigration as the wedge issues. The actual question is whether that coalition exists statewide at the scale he needs. Katelyn Leong, writing in Davis Vanguard:
According to Steyer’s press team, the discussion focused on plans to build more housing, lower housing costs for Californians and address barriers to development across the state. The interview also touched on “the special interests spending big against Steyer and his change agenda, including the California Association of Realtors,” the release stated.
Tom Steyer went on Pod Save America to talk housing, and his campaign made sure to flag that the California Association of Realtors is spending against him. Worth saying out loud: that's a press release, not an independent account of the interview. CAR spending against a YIMBY-aligned candidate is actually a useful data point. It tells you Steyer is threatening something real, not just doing housing-forum theater. Follow the opposition money. His pitch is the same leverage argument Newsom's been making for years: tie state funding flows to permitting requirements. The question is whether Steyer can make it land harder as a candidate than Newsom did as governor. From Benjamin Hart at Intelligencer:
Since the candidates who finish in first and second place will advance to November’s general election, the Republicans’ presence near the top of polls has raised fears that they could lock out Democrats from the governorship, even in a deep-blue state.
Intelligencer's framing here is basically right — Harris freezing the field and then walking away was the original sin. Every serious Democrat who passed on the race did the math and waited for her, and now they're stuck with this. Stuck is generous. Becerra is surging because Swalwell imploded, not because voters are lit up about him. That's a polling vacuum, not a coalition. Steyer's money is real, but his ceiling has always been soft — he proved that in 2020. The number everybody should be watching is whether Bianco or Hilton — with Trump's endorsement in Hilton's pocket — can consolidate enough of the Republican vote to grab that second top-two slot. A Dem-free November ballot in California would be a historic embarrassment. It's not just embarrassing, it's mathematically possible. Republicans don't need a majority, they just need the Democratic vote to stay split across four credible candidates. That's the actual threat here, and I don't think Sacramento is taking it seriously enough yet. If you're following California's governor's race with us, consider subscribing wherever you're listening. And if you can leave a quick review, it really helps other people find the show. Thanks for making us part of your day.
We've put links to all of today's stories in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can take a closer look there.
That's California Governor's Race for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.